Mr. Suskind’s new book, Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President, released in bookstores today, details the inner workings of the White House during the financial crisis of 2008. Mr. Suskind appeared on MSNBC‘s Morning Joe this morning and told host Joe Scarborough that Timothy Geithner is, in fact, a werewolf and that Rahm Emmanuel is an ancient Carpathian vampire.

“It’s true,” said Mr. Suskind, “I have it on tape. We locked Tim in the basement bowling alley at the White House one night during a full moon. It’s a frightening tape, but, you can tell its him. He just went nuts when the full moon came up. Just nuts.”

“And Rahm,” Mr. Suskind continued, “you never see Rahm out in sunlight. Only at night. Try to find a picture of him in the sun. Doesn’t exist. They had developed a network of ACORN sites that used to feed young, homeless girls up to Rahm’s office after hours. One by one, in they’d go, but they never came back out. Seriously creepy.”

White House Press SecretaryJay Carney quickly dismissed Mr. Suskind’s claims, calling them, “Specious and twisted. This is an example of Mr. Suskind’s warped imagination carrying him away. The book is pure sensationalism, full of errors and fantastic exaggeration.”

Mr. Suskind says of the White House, “They’re trying to throw up as much dust and doubt as they possibly can. But, if you get a few drinks in Christina Romer or Anita Dunn, they’ll tell you all about Rahm. It’s a different story with Tim. He can’t really help himself, poor guy. But Rahm is something else. Roams the halls at night, wearing that black cape with the red silk lining. The guy’s pure evil. He’ll suck the very life right out of you and won’t bat an eye.”

Mr. Suskind’s book goes on to document the purported ‘hostile environment’ towards women in the White House.

“Anita Dunn told me, and again, I have this on tape, that she was sick and tired of Rahm trying to get her off in a corner to bite her on the neck. That’s the real reason she left the administration. Christina too.”

A spokesperson for the US Department of the Treasury announced today that, over the next three years, all printing of US-denominated paper currencies will be outsourced to China.

Luther Melly, Undersecretary for the US Department of the Treasury Printing Service, spoke with a small group of reporters early this morning on the rear steps of the US Treasury building in Washington, DC.

“We have decided that it is more cost-effective to tap into the world-class manufacturing capability that now exists in China than to continue to operate the somewhat antiquated printing facilities we have here in the US.” Melly said.

“We took a look at a cost-benefit analysis ranking the proposal we received from the Chinese and comparing it to the investment required to upgrade our old technology printing facilities here at home. We ultimately decided that this is a job best left to the experts in Asia.”

According to Melly, a key part of the negotiations with the Chinese concerned interest payments that the US pays to China on funds borrowed from them and secured by US Treasury Notes.

“Ultimately,” said Melly, “we agreed that they could just print up their own payment every week. We would, of course, agree on the amount, but it will be much simpler for them just to print it up for themselves. We see this as a huge cost savings on the administrative end alone.”

As part of the negotiations, the Chinese further agreed to discontinue phone calls to the residence of US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in the evenings and on week-ends.

Melly said, “There is some guy from China who calls himself ‘Trevor’ who calls Secretary Geithner’s home relentlessly about upcoming interest payments. We wanted to make sure that this activity was suspended for evenings and week-ends to give the Secretary some peace and quiet.”

On a brighter note, Melly went on to say, “The good news is that we will continue to stamp our coins right here in the US.”

“People just don’t realize how much harder the paper printing is, as compared to the coin stamping. Frankly,” Melly said, “a couple of times in the past few years, the printing machines have broken down and we almost ran out of money. Our guys have these gigantic printing presses patched together with chewing gum and baling wire and, when they go down, all hell breaks loose. Thanks to our friends at the Canadian Bank Note Company, we were able to do a work around so the US consumer didn’t really notice. We just don’t have the expertise any more to keep these plants going 24/7. The Chinese have really become much better at this. We need to focus our resources here at home on those areas where our US base of knowledge-workers are best utilized.”

When Dreadmonger inquired as to what those areas might be, Melly responded, “Why, green jobs, of course.”

Dreadmonger will provide updates to this story as details become available.

Standard & Poor’s Managing Director, John Chambers, told Dreadmonger this morning, “We believe the entire planet should now be considered at economic risk – except for Texas, which is actually doing pretty good.”

“Initially, we downgraded the US Government, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac. Then we began to look at states like California, New York. and Arizona.Then one of our junior guys in the bond room said, ‘What about Italy and Spain?’. So, we just thought, you know, let’s just do the entire planet. Except, of course, for Texas.”

When queried by Dreadmonger about the $2 trillion math error that White House officials and US Secretary of the TreasuryTimothy Geithner noted on Sunday talk shows this past week-end, Chambers replied, “Look, we have now extended our downgrade to the degree that this so-called ‘math error’ that Secretary Geithner is complaining about is, essentially, chump change.”

“At S&P, our guys have looked at places like Saturn, Jupiter, you know, Venus, and we just don’t see the high debt to GDP ratios that we see on this planet. I should point out that S&P downgraded Pluto right after it lost its planetary status in 2006. So, obviously, Pluto is not a valid comparison. We don’t count Pluto any longer.”

When reporters from Dreadmonger pointed out that, as in the case of sub-prime mortgage securities in 2008, S&P acted on a downgrade of Pluto only after the fact, Chambers responded, “Standard & Poor’s, if you count its predecessor companies, has been rating bonds since the 1920s. We have a long track record of over 100 years. If we missed a few along the way, well, nobody bats a thousand now, do they?”

Chambers went on to warn, “We think that there is the possibility of extending the downgrade in future months if we don’t see real, marked improvement in the situation on Earth”.

When asked by Dreadmonger how S&P might further extend it’s downgrade beyond Planet Earth, Chamber’s only gave a slight smile and said, “well, there’s still Texas.”

Dreadmonger will provide updates to this developing story in real-time.

Tim Geithner isn’t sleeping well these days. And now, he says, it’s bound to get worse.

“The phone calls from these guys in India are driving me crazy,” US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told Dreadmonger in an exclusive interview from his Maryland home on Saturday.

“They’re calling from India but, it’s really the Chinese calling about the money we owe them. And now, with this idiotic S&P downgrade, I know it’ll just get worse.”

Geithner says he receives several calls every day like clockwork from “Trevor”.

“He says his name is ‘Trevor’ but he’s calling from India and his real name is CHINA!”

“8:15 in the morning, noon, 5PM, and again at 8PM – you can set your watch by this guy,” reports Geithner. “And forget sleeping in on the week-end. Not a chance – Saturday, Sunday, makes no difference to Trevor.”

Trevor, and a raft of his phone bank campadres, are calling to remind Treasury Secretary Geithner about the debt interest payments that are due.

“And do you think that raising the debt ceiling made a difference to these guys?” fumes Geithner, “No, I swear they’ve called more than ever this week. What do they think, the US Government’s going to leave town in the middle of the night? I’m thinking about giving them the Grand Canyon or the Washington Monument or something just to shut them up. Maybe the Smithsonian.”

But, unfortunately for Geithner, his options are limited these days. “I had lunch with Ben the other day.” That would be Federal Reserve ChairmanBen Bernanke. “I ask him ‘Does a guy named Trevor ever call you?’. Poor Ben just buried his head in his hands. Same drill – gets calls every day. I told him we should call Petraeus or Panetta or whoever and see if we can borrow some drones to pay these guys a visit. Jeez, something”

Geithner is looking ahead to his future opportunities outside of government.